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Love, not sacrifice

12

Jun

Galatians 5:2—”Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.”

The situation is this, we heard the Good News of the Gospel. We are aware of the significance of the Cross. We know the rights and advantages we have through Christ. But then, down the line, we go on a tangent while we try to read the Bible and stay obedient to God’s Word. In this train of thought and action, we make our ‘works’ our main priority. We feel that if we stick to the right works, we will be righteous and right with God. True? Certainly not. Our works, traditions, religious rituals etc cannot ever make us right with God when there is sin involved. Only Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the validation for us with God.

Some people say that because they are circumcised they will attain salvation. Is this possible? To give them the benefit of doubt – let’s keep aside the practice of physical circumcision; maybe they meant circumcising anything that causes them to sin. Does this qualify them for salvation? The simple answer is”No”. Only our faith that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross, took away our sins and gave us the victory holds true. Through Christ we got freedom from our sin and worldly problems, such illness, poverty, moods of depression, and anything negative. We were freed from this bondage and therefore we should not be entangled in any yoke of bondage. Through Christ we are children of God, we have rights and we have our salvation. Nothing that we ever do, even if we count all our obedience and good deeds that we do from our birth to our death, will qualify us for Salvation.

If we feel that our circumcision and right works attain our righteousness and salvation, then Christ and what He did for us not comes to nought. If we feel that way, then the whole Old Testament laws etc. will be applicable to us, isn’t it? Then, we will be cut away from Christ, justified only by the law and be fallen away from grace of God. “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”(Galatians 5) In our faith through the Spirit, we wait for the hope of righteousness. In Christ, circumcision and un-circumcision doesn’t count. Only thing that matters is our faith that works through love; God’s love that manifests through us.

Our good work doesn’t matter. God’s love conquers all. Let’s concentrate on sharing God’s love and not on our good works. “For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Galatians 5)